It irritates me to no end when news agencies report leaked information that puts others lives and livelyhood at jeopardy. It shows a lack of caring and the willingness to line your pockets at the expense of others. As a developer, I understand the loss that many have felt.

That being said, I can hardly fault P|C for reporting valid news items. This is a site for users/developers/technophiles to come and learn and share about WebOS. Just because this leak was the straw that broke the camels back doesn't excuse the developer(s) who stacked the hay in the first place.

Palm reacted poorly to this leak, and I think in many ways, they have shot themselves in the foot. Palm decided to fight back, even though the leak was minor. That is their perogative.

Anyway, I likely joined this too late to really make an impact on things, but such is life.

How is this situation any different than this situation? I'm sure there was a NDA in both cases. I didn't hear any complaints [about P|C] from anyone back in July.

Those leaks were not traced back to a third-party dev who broke his/her NDA with Palm when gaining early access to a future (and major) update to their entire operating system. A leak of the existence of a third party app does not compare to a leak of code underlying the OS of a mobile operating system. it wasn't a vague clue as to the hardware that might or might not be present in the next hardware release, or even a clue to the capabilities of the next OS update. It was the release of actual code contained in that release, and that is what's most problematic to Palm.
Now, if the code of the app were proprietary and were leaked, that would be closer to the issue of the SDK code that was leaked, but it wasn't. And let's remember that just because something happened before doesn't make it right the second time around, so please don't use that defense.
I personally don't think is was the right thing to do in publishing this leak, given my view of where precentral sits in relation to Palm and the webOS community. I don't think there is anything morally or ethically wrong with what they did. But if that is the route they want to go, I wouldn't consider them a reliable or upstanding representation of the webOS community as a whole, and I'm sure Palm would give a bit more pause when interacting with them, or any of us.

I don't understand the purpose of the line, “I don't need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

reading how you guys are reacting is PATHETIC! PC got a tip, and they reported it. They didn't wake up and say, "hey, let's ****** over some devs today!" the reaction by Palm was unnecessary and too much. They're only shootin themselves in the foot. They should quit crying about a little insignificant leak and start makin some f'n hardware!

If PC wanted to report something, they could've said that they got another tip which leads them to believe that VKB was going to be included in 2.0, and then waxed about the potential both on the hardware and the software side of things. However, the released screenshots of the actual code in the SDK, which I don't think they had to do, or should have done. PC has always been a strong proponent of webOS and is clear that they want to see it and Palm succeed. But in posting the code, no matter how trivial, they were shortsighted in understanding the fact that it could be detrimental to Pam and its business. Yes, it was just about a VKB, but what if it were something much more substantial? Something that could put them at a competitive disadvantage. Would your opinion change then?
As I said, PC is free to do what they choose with the information they receive. That doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with their publishing it, or that it was the right thing to do.

I don't understand the purpose of the line, “I don't need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

I really hate the implication that a news outlet should be responsible for protecting a corporation's IPs.

I'm also unconvinced that this is a big deal other than Palm's overreaction. You guys realize Precentral is one of the only sites covering the progress of WebOS 2.0, right? Not Engadget. Not Gizmodo. Not Ars Technica. Not Anandtech. Just Precentral. That's how far off the radar this is.

Then there are quotes like:

we all sent emails, etc telling HP that the best assets they got in the acquisition were this community of users and homebrewers - and precentral.

knowledgable, loyal (well, at least until EVO shipped) and passionate about webOS. They embraced us. We need to act like we value that embrace and continue to earn their confidence. Especially since this apparently happened recently with a warning from Palm.

Which is just such a backwards way of thinking. Palm should be thanking the community for fixing and maintaining WebOS to the point where it's usable. The community shouldn't be thanking Palm for letting us care more about their software than they do. That just reeks of battered woman syndrome.

Where in the h*ll is Dieter's reply! And please tell me he doesn't have to check in with Palm/HP before we hear it. I wasn't happy when I heard HP bought Palm and I fear that this is the sort of thing we will have to put up with in the future. HP didn't become a 130 billion dollar a year company by supporting "open source" intellectual property. If a Dev broke a mutually agreed upon legal contract punish him legally. I belong to this forum because A: I like Palm products B: I believe in freedom of information and C: I personally benefit from all the great work done by everyone here. Pitting Palm/HP, Devs, Mods and forum members against each other makes very little sense and does nothing to advance the developement of what I think is the best OS ever.